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Eli Katz wrote:I had trouble reading this. It's not my kind of book, and I don't care about the characters at all.

The art is not as bad as most of you say. It's competent and, in some places, rather good. But it is not consistent. The book start of strong. The first splash page is detailed and dynamic, but halfway through, the backgrounds seem to disappear and the characters end up inhabiting a lot of empty space. The worst pages are the ones with the blood splatter panels. It's as though the artist was running out of time and decided ink sprays over a face would suffice as storytelling.

STORY: 3ART: 6.5

OVERALL: 4.75

consistency is my strongest criteria for art when looking at it critically. Style is completely subjective, consistency and storytelling are the most objective qualities a comics art can have.

thefourthman wrote:also, Eli, read Selina's Big Score by Darwyn Cooke, I guarantee you will enjoy it and you will probably dig her if no one else after it!

Speaking of that has anyone read When in Rome, is it worth the trouble?

I read When in Rome, but remember absolutely nothing about it. Unlike most posers today though who try to claim they don't like Loeb/Sale Batman, I still admit to enjoying it, so I'd say you should probably read it.

Jude Terror wrote:I read When in Rome, but remember absolutely nothing about it. Unlike most posers today though who try to claim they don't like Loeb/Sale Batman, I still admit to enjoying it, so I'd say you should probably read it.

I love The Long Halloween (A lot) so yeah, I guess I should... I should also read Dark Victory and Haunted Knight

doombug wrote:What posers claim they don't like the Loeb/Sale color books? Or the batman stuff?

Lots of people. I had someone asking about Batman the other day and it seemed like she wanted the kind of thing that Long Halloween was and fourthbro wanted to ridicule it. What was funny was she bought it still, shows how little faith some have in fourthbro or how much faith they have in me...

thefourthman wrote:consistency is my strongest criteria for art when looking at it critically. Style is completely subjective, consistency and storytelling are the most objective qualities a comics art can have.

Consistency is important, but only if the artist is competent. If someone is consistently terrible, then being consistent is not much of an achievement. Rob Liefeld and Todd MacFarlane are both consistently bad at anatomy. Do I praise them for that?

For me, the clarity and the richness of storytelling are most important. Do I understand what's going on? Are there enough details in the panels to make me believe in the action? Is there anything about the art that distracts me or takes me out of the story? These are the questions I ask myself when I look at and review a book.